


They Work Well Together

by swooning



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3704577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom had been on top of the pile for most of his time behind bars. But even he had learned from someone, and he recognized the biggest dog when she sank her teeth into the scruff of his neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Work Well Together

They worked well together.   
  
He did everything she told him to do, and although he didn’t always do so without complaint, they both knew what the ultimate outcome would be once she gave an order. She knew he didn’t want to be booted out an airlock. He knew she and Adama were perfectly willing to flush him away if they deemed it in the best interest of the fleet; in fact, he knew that the only reason he’d avoided that treatment was Laura’s interest in keeping him on. To work for her. Her second-in-command, in title at least. Strange, how he was as good as invisible once he’d accepted her terms and she had resumed the top office. He did her work invisibly, which was often useful to her, so at least he was being of use. A cog in the machine, which was the last role he would have ever envisioned for himself… sometimes it sickened him to realize he was good at it.  
  
There had been a time, and he remembered it as if it had happened to someone else, when he’d held all the cards. When he could have insisted she come to him, could have had her  _brought_  to him, and there really would not have been much recourse for her. Oh, there might have been a hue and cry, a little fuss, and he would have had to watch his back for awhile afterward… but ultimately she would have given him what he wanted, fuming at his smugness, and then he could have discarded her for the next one. Not rape, it wouldn’t have been rape; but sometimes an acceptance of quid pro quo amounts to little better, when the alternative to “quo” is alienating the political leadership in a place like New Caprica.  
  
Just as well, perhaps, that he had never indulged himself in making  _that_  little fantasy come true before the Cylons returned and mooted his power. On the other hand… now, he realized he had never been able to discard her, so there had never been a next one. Which lent even more power to her hold over him. And she knew it, he could tell.   
  
Meekly, he would sit on the other side of her desk, or mock-companionably in a seat next to hers, taking her orders and knowing that when she did listen to his opinion she did so on sufferance. She might even argue with him if she was in the mood, play his ideas out a little… but she would ultimately do what  _she_  wanted to do, because she had the power again now and would most likely have it until she died.   
  
She was better at it than he was, too, he had to admit. Her play was more subtle, he  _wanted_  to do as she ordered, she never had to force him. Really, she just had to give him one of a handful of looks, not all of them seductive. If it had been prison, and she had been a large enough man, she would have owned him; he would have been her bitch and it would not have been all bad. Withholding and then giving, rewarding… so sweet, those rewards, when they came. The equation was really so simple, in that sort of relationship. Tom was big himself, and good at people; he had been on top of the pile for most of his time behind bars. But even he had learned from someone, and he recognized the biggest dog when she sank her teeth into the scruff of his neck. Not Adama, father or son, and never Baltar, for frak’s sake. Not himself. It was this slender, bitchy, hyper-competent redhead who still sashayed through his dreams in her suit and heels, looking back over her shoulder at him dismissively when he tried again, and failed again, to reach the curves of her impeccable ass with both hands.   
  
She smelled good. He realized it each day as if it were a new thing, the light and fresh scent of her hair slipping over her shoulder when she bent to look at a document, the way a new layer of clean, soapy air would waft through the room when she took off her jacket for the first time around mid-morning. The skin of his cheek remembered what her much softer cheek felt like, leaning against him in a kiss that had meant only a bit more than a handshake. His body recalled the length of hers sprawled over him after she’d tumbled him down the hill to escape Cylon bullets, both of them bruised and shaking with their hands still zip-tied and panic sweat breaking out despite the chill. If he hadn’t been tied up, he would have thrown his arms around her and held on, even – though the very thought astonished him – shielded her body with his own. Returning the favor.   
  
But his reach fell short. Over and over. And then he sat opposite her, or falsely beside her, the next day, and she would give him that same look… amused, tolerant, sometimes with an added smirk that would have made him swear she somehow  _knew_. As perhaps she did. She was an attractive and compelling woman of a certain age, and he knew from long observation that she was quite accustomed to dealing with men who wanted her and would never have her. It wasn’t as though he was the first, not by a long shot. There had been the eager little schoolboy before Tori, the one who had died so stupidly… Timmy? Bobby? And Wally, faithful and stolid with eyes like a spaniel following her every move. Several members of the Quorum, and about half of the press corps. And even the Adama boy…   
  
He didn’t like to think of the Adama  _man_ , who got to sit next to her and really  _be_  next to her, beside her like an equal and not someone who was being managed. Every time he saw their heads bent together in solemn conspiracy, or worse yet in a shared – and usually rather bitter – laugh, he wanted to kill them both. Oh, not on the surface, because he no longer inhabited that world and he had long since learned to play whatever game his current situation called for; but deep down he knew it to be a killing rage, and he knew at the root of it was the fact that he’d never had her, and never  _would_. And even if Adama hadn’t either, he was reasonably certain, Adama sure seemed a hell of a lot closer than he would ever get.   
  
But it was an impotent rage. He wouldn’t kill anyone… else. And he would take his orders with only token arguments, which she knew as well as he did bore little weight. Despite the occasional curious look she threw his way, perhaps as a sop to the almost inappropriately intense staring in which he was prone to engage. He had plenty of opportunity to stare, sitting in her office and waiting so very patiently for her attention. Dressed in an ever shabbier suit that slouched out of shape with lack of pressing, with a tie he never would have picked for himself, feeling like an errand boy and knowing the title of Vice President meant only what she decided it meant on any given day. He would do what she asked of him, what she  _told_  him to do, because it was all that was left to him. Her orders, and his miserable compliance. The only remaining connection between them. It was probably the only reason he was still alive.   
  
Because they worked well together. 


End file.
